


Duty

by autumnsolstice9



Series: Justice [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 08:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16237838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnsolstice9/pseuds/autumnsolstice9
Summary: Naruto thinks he doesn’t know what love is.Or: Naruto tries to understand love and why Hinata would leave it behind.





	Duty

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read without reading "Remembrance" or "Blossom", but reading those two will help understand the background of the world.

Naruto thinks he doesn’t know what love is.

He loves his village, he loves parents buried somewhere in the ground, he loves his friends, Kakashi-sensei, Sakura, Sai, Sasuke, Iruka-sensei. He loves Jiraiya, who is gone and never coming back.

He loves Hinata, in some capacity, but he does not know what love is.

“Iruka-sensei,” he asks one night, his head resting on his pseudo-father’s shoulder, “How do you know if you’re in love?”

His sensei looks thoughtful, a hand coming up to rest on his chin while he stares up at the stars. “Well, I think it’s when you look at someone and they feel like home. You can’t imagine being without them. You would leave the village if it meant you got to stay with them because they’re home and without them you’re lost. That’s what love is to me.”

Naruto knows his sensei has always been in search of a home. Iruka left the Mist, his house was destroyed in the kyuubi attack, he bounced from home to home until he was an adult and could finally make one of his own. It only makes sense that love is a home for him. He never stayed in one place for long, and Naruto wonders if the chuunin has ever been in love, so he asks.

“Once,” Iruka tells him, “I was in love once.”

“What happened?”

“Ah,” he breathes out, quiet in the night, staring out towards some figure Naruto cannot identify in the darkness of Konoha, “Not everyone is destined to have a happy ending.”

Naruto wants to ask more questions about Iruka’s life, about a love that seems to be lost, about whether Iruka left or was left behind. Instead, he reaches for his sensei’s hand and gives it a squeeze.

“How do you know that?”

Iruka’s eyes remain on the figure in the distance, trailing their path before they disappear from view. “You never really know,” he tells him, “Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Sometimes I think shinobi never really know love, or that they forget how to love and be in love somewhere between a mission and the village gates, that everything gets lost somewhere in the line of duty.”

Naruto thinks of Hinata leaving the village gates, of sacrifice he cannot understand. Would she forget how to love in the wilderness of the world? Would she become cold and angry like Sasuke? Would she forget how to love Naruto?

“Hinata told me she loves me,” Naruto says, “She put herself in front of Pein for me. She said she wanted to walk by my side. Is that love? Is it still love if she left?”

Naruto looks at Iruka’s pinched brow, the way his fingers twitch in his lap, the faraway look in his eyes. “People are willing to sacrifice for love and willing to sacrifice love for the greater good. I know few shinobi more familiar with sacrifice than Hinata.”

He can’t understand that, can’t wrap his head around giving up love. He has spent his life chasing after love and acceptance, but Hinata would sacrifice it for some goal. He thinks of seals, of Neji’s anger, of Hinata’s abandonment.

“I don’t understand why she left,” he tells Iruka. “I know her father wanted to seal her, but why leave? Why not fight it? He can’t seal the heiress to the clan.”

Iruka gives him a long look. “Naruto,” he says, his words heavy, “Some things are greater than one person. She was injured, too, she barely survived Pein’s attack. How would she fight? If she won, she saves herself. What about all the others?” His eyes look haunted, and Naruto knows he’s remembering escaping the Mist as a child.

“Love,” Iruka says after a moment, “does not always come before duty.”

His sensei rubs the scar on his nose, and Naruto wonders how his sensei is so familiar with the topic.

“Iruka-sensei, did you sacrifice love for duty?”

There is a long silence. “Come on,” Iruka finally answers, “Let’s go get some ramen.”

Naruto spends the entire meal thinking about love, about sacrifice, and how Hinata, who has always loved with her whole heart, must feel empty if she is willing to give up love. He wonders if she has ever felt whole while living in a clan of cold eyes.

He ignores how he feels as empty inside as he imagines she does.

***

“Kakashi-sensei, have you ever been in love?”

The white-haired jonin rubs the back of his head. “Now why would you ask that?”

Naruto shrugs in response. He knows his teacher is always five steps ahead and knows why he asked.

“I have always been in love with Icha-Icha,” Kakashi tells him.

Naruto doesn’t answer, opting instead to stare at his sensei until he relents. It takes a while, but eventually the copy-nin gives a sigh and puts down the book he had been reading. 

“I’ve loved a lot of people,” Kakashi says, looking up towards the clouds in the sky. “I loved my team. I loved my family. I love my friends. I love my students. Have I ever been in love? Once, I think.”

“What happened?”

“I’m a shinobi. Duty comes first, even if it means sacrificing love.”

Naruto thinks back to what Iruka said, and wonders if, out in the world somewhere, Hinata is telling someone the same thing, that duty came before love in the world of shinobi.

“How do you know when sacrificing love is worth it? When does duty become more important?”

Kakashi leans forward to face him, face serious like he is reading a mission scroll. “Look, Naruto, sometimes you have to ask yourself if your own happiness is more important than what your mission is.”

He takes in his sensei’s words, chewing on his lip. “But Hinata isn’t on a mission? She left to escape the seal.”

“Who says the two aren’t related? Hinata is familiar with sacrifice, more than most of the shinobi your age. That’s part of growing up a shinobi, and part of growing up a Hyuuga.”

“I don’t understand,” Naruto mutters.

“Hyuuga is a house of many secrets,” Kakashi says, and disappears in a swirl of leaves.

***

He tries to ask Neji, but apparently the Hyuuga compound is under lockdown. When he asks the guards standing outside why, they exchange glances before one beckons Naruto forward so they can whisper in his ear.

“There are people saying Hinata-hime will come back.” The guards voice is laced with anticipation, and Naruto is still confused.

Why block off an entire compound if Hinata is going to return?

“I don’t understand why that means the compound is closed.”

The guard grabs his arm in a tight grip. “We don’t know when Hinata-hime will come back. We just await her arrival.”

The other guard coughs, interrupting their conversation. “Ko, we can’t say anymore. Hyuuga eyes see everything.”

The guard- Ko, apparently- grows grim and goes back into position, face blank.

There is no noise from inside the compound.

It feels more ominous than it should.

***

He goes to Kurenai-sensei. If he cannot see Neji, then Hinata’s teacher is the next best option.

“Kurenai-sensei, everyone keeps saying Hinata has faced sacrifice more than most. What do they mean?”

The genjutsu user stirs her tea from where she sits, her movements slow and thoughtful.

“Did you know Hinata pulls punches?”

He didn’t, but it makes sense when he thinks about it. She never seemed to hit anyone too hard when they sparred and often let herself get beaten, but on the battlefield she would kill without hesitation. 

“But,” Kurenai continues, “She knows when to do so. Hinata would do anything for love. She won’t pull punches for that. Tell me, Naruto, what do you think love is?”

“I think love is sacrifice. I think love is the death of duty,” he tells her, thinking of everything Iruka and Kakashi told him.

“No,” Kurenai says, “Love is choosing which duty to follow. We have a duty to our village, a duty to our clans, a duty to ourselves. We follow duty out of love. We choose which duty we will fulfill based on what we love, what is important to us. Why do you think Hinata left the village?”

“To escape the seal.” It’s what he has pieced together after a conversation with Sakura, one that shakes him to his core, but he still can’t understand her actions.

“And why would she come back?”

“Because of duty? Because she is a shinobi of the leaf and a Hyuuga?”

Kurenai smiles with sharp teeth. “She will come back because she is Hinata, and she will fight for her duty. Above all else, Hinata’s duty has been love. Yes, she is a shinobi of the leaf, yes, she is a Hyuuga, but above all that she is _Hinata_. Do you understand?”

His head feels a little foggy, and he still struggles to piece together the information. “So she will come back because of love? Love for what?”

Red eyes pierce into Naruto. “Love for justice.”

***

He leaves Kurenai’s house and, despite it taking longer for him to get back home, he walks past the Hyuuga compound again, giving the guards a tiny nod.

Naruto doesn’t think he knows what love is, but he figures that he must love Hinata more than the village, because he will not tell the Hokage of what is to come.

A coup in the Hyuuga clan. He’s sure of it.

Love is choosing what duty to follow, and Naruto chooses to follow his heart, even if it means ignoring his duty to his village.

The Hyuuga compound makes no noise, but it is no longer ominous.

They are waiting for Hinata to return.

Naruto goes home and waits with them.

**Author's Note:**

> did yall catch the hint of kakairu hehehehe
> 
> also kurenai is one of like 2 ninjas who isnt emotionally stunted and shes the best sensei i love her


End file.
